By Kim Eun-jung SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's satellite delivered by its long-range rocket was circling the Earth with an orbital period of 95.4 minutes, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday, but it was not yet known whether it was functioning properly.

A day after the communist state's successful, surprising multistage rocket launch, the defense ministry acknowledged that the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite was circling the Earth at a speed of 7.6 kilometers per second, with the oval radius spanning 500-588 km, citing data by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.